Compromise bill would permit small webcasters to stay alive without setting dangerous CARP precedent; goes to Senate next

BY PAUL MALONEY & KURT HANSON
The House of Representatives, in a "suspension" vote that bypasses the usual committee process, has just passed H.R. 5469, the bill which amends the copyright law to include the royalty rate compromise reached last night by small commercial webcasters and the record industry.

"The interplay between Berman and Sensenbrenner was really interesting," noted 3WK co-founder Wanda Atkinson, who watched the proceedings on C-SPAN. "Berman acknowledged Sensenbrenner's 'ham-handed- manner of introducing the earlier version of HR 5469, but then indicated he realized that the bill introduction was actually Sensenbrenner's way of forcing webcasters and the RIAA to come to an agreement."

This means the bill now goes to the Senate, where, if it passes, and with a signature from the President, it will become law. It is expected to hit the Senate floor within the next week or so.

The bill specifies that the rate cannot be claimed to be a "willing buyer/willing seller" by participants in any future CARP arbitration. (This should satisfy the NAB's primary concern last week that had them intending to not support the bill because it might be seen as establishing a new "marketplace" rate.)

The full text of the bill is not yet available (as of 3PM CDT) but may soon be posted on the website of the Office of the Clerk of the House of Represenatives here._________________"Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatibl